The weather may still feel straight out of Dante, but let me be the first to wish you this: Happy New Year!

No, I’m not jumping the gun by a full quarter; September is when every Houston new year really starts. Really.

Of course, Texas is slightly out of whack by sending its offspring back to school in August — why, God, why? — and the smells of dry-erase markers and Axe body spray are definitely in the air.

After its season of torpor, the city is waking up.

The Houston Ballet season will begin a little later than usual (thanks, Hurricane Harvey), but the Alley Theatre and Houston Grand Opera are just two of the many arts organizations that do ring in their new year this month. You have your season tickets, right?

And as folks roll back into town from summering in Colorado, the social scene will begin its annual whirl.

This is why we don’t have to pretend that some awful, booze-filled night in the middle of winter is significant, or even fun. There’s no magic to Jan. 1.

People in the Near East have long celebrated the infinitesimal increase in daylight after the December solstice.

The Romans called this period Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the birthday of the Unconquerable Sun, which is admirably metal. But since we got cities, central heating and electricity, we don’t have to care.

This January business was the brainchild of Julius Caesar, who set Jan. 1 of 45 B.C. as the start of the new year. He liked the idea of beginning a year with the month named after Janus, the two-faced god of doorways and gates. It was already the official start of the consular year and thus served as a not-subtle reminder to Rome’s conquered peoples of who was boss.

At some point after the fall of Rome, when Christianity became cool, some Christians began celebrating March 25, or the Feast of the Annunciation, as the start of the new year. But it didn’t catch on widely, maybe because starting the year with the day somebody found out she was pregnant is, let’s face it, super weird.

Enter Pope Gregory XIII, who in 1582 gave us a vastly improved calendar, with leap days, that restored Jan. 1 to its former status.

But that’s just the West. Around the world, the new year shows up, well, whenever. The Persian New Year, Nowruz, arrives with the vernal equinox, usually March 21. The Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year, or Tet, will be on Feb. 5 in 2019. In parts of Southeast Asia, including Cambodia and Laos, a new year is based on the positions of stars, and it falls on April 14 in 2019. In Islam, it’s the first day of the month of Muharram, and it moves 11 Western days every year. This year, the Jewish New Year — Rosh Hashana, literally the Head of the Year — starts Sept. 20. Your company’s fiscal year is whenever.

In other words, a new year celebration is a completely human construct. It can be whenever we want it to be.

In Houston, August is languid, but September is active. August’s social calendar is empty; September’s is full. In August, you bolt from car to office to car to house. In September, you can venture out into the yard. In August, your boss is gone. In September, your boss is back — and brimming with lame ideas. In August, feet sweat in sandals. In September, you can start thinking about boots. Boots!

Are you on board yet? If so, raise a glass of young rosé to a coming season of health, prosperity, love and black tights. With your boots.